TAYLOR — A few hours after Mustafa Elmi slipped undetected across the Rio Grande in June, he was arrested by Border Patrol officers for entering the country illegally.

Within two weeks, he was transported to a Central Texas facility wrapped in a high, razor-wire fence and overseen by an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Somali Muslim was fingerprinted, photographed and issued a uniform.

Surveillance cameras eyed him. Guards timed his meals on wristwatches. He was counted, along with the others, three times a day. And if he stepped out of line, his mother was there to shush him into submission.

Mustafa is 3 years old.

For seven months, he was one of an estimated 200 children, mostly from countries other than Mexico, being held with their parents at a correctional center turned into a detention facility for immigrant families facing deportation.

ICE officials say the "state of the art" facility, which opened in May, is a humane alternative to severing immigrant families while parents wade through a swamp of bureaucracy, awaiting either asylum or deportation. The agency abandoned the old "catch and release" method after 9/11 because most immigrants weren't showing up for their hearings.

"I do understand that when you approach the facility, it does look like a detention facility, but once inside, I think we've done a very good job of softening things to make it as family-friendly as we can," Gary Mead, assistant director for detention and removal operations in Washington, said Tuesday.

But if humane treatment is the goal, human rights activists and other critics say the Taylor facility has failed.

"It is wrong for the United States to be detaining immigrant families with young children in a prisonlike environment when they have alternatives," said Rebecca Bernhardt, of the American Civil Rights League of Texas. "I don't think most Americans are aware that we're doing this. If they knew what the conditions were like, if they could see the families, they would find this pretty outrageous."

Resolution filed

Bernhardt and other members of Texans United for Families are holding a news conference today in Austin to discuss a resolution filed by state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin.

"Children who have had no decisive role in their migration or flight should not be exposed to avoidable trauma," reads the resolution, which asks the Homeland Security Department to reconsider all alternatives to detaining asylum-seeking families.

The resolution echoes orders a congressional committee made in 2005, advising children be detained only as a last resort, and only in "nonpenal, homelike environments."

"Homelike" is not the scene depicted by former detainees, family members, attorneys and refugee advocates interviewed by the Houston Chronicle over the past month. They say that although the sign out front reads the T. Don Hutto "Residential" Center, it remains a prisonlike environment.

Detainees say that families sleep in cold prison cells, with the slamming of jail gates and a siren of wailing children ringing in the halls. During the day, they share couches in a common area, reading or watching TV for hours on end.

Parents say their children have gone weeks, even months, without feeling the sun on their faces. They're not allowed to run, jump or laugh too loudly indoors. They get an hour a day to play in a spare gym.

While many of the guards are said to be warm and friendly with the children, presenting them with stickers and turns at the PlayStation, others are said to yell at misbehaving youngsters and even threaten to separate them from their mothers if they don't comply.

"They don't treat people like humans, only animals," said one former detainee, who is seeking asylum from gang violence and corruption in Guatemala. He asked that his name not be used for fear it would hurt his asylum case. "The baby was crying a lot because he didn't see the sun. I thought prisons were for murderers. What did the baby do wrong?"

For several months, Hutto children got one hour of school, but ICE officials say they recently increased that to four.

Some detainees complain of rashes and sores, which they believe could be caused by dirty uniforms, detergent allergies or depression and stress. Some children reportedly suffer vomiting bouts from the food or weight loss from refusing to eat.

Mustafa's mother, Bahjo Hosen, said her toddler won the hearts of many guards. But he soon became sick with diarrhea, fever and dizziness, she said. He would often vomit after meals and lost several pounds after he refused to eat the food and drank only milk.

"I asked many times, 'My son doesn't eat, can you please give him vitamins?' They said they weren't allowed," said Bahjo.

During lunch, Bahjo said guards would set their watches for 20 minutes or so as mothers and fathers urged their children to eat "rapido, rapido." Those at the end of the line often had only a few minutes and wouldn't finish, Bahjo said.

But her son learned to stay still when he had to, especially during count three times a day, which could take hours.

Detainees' allegations

Detainees and their family members also told the Chronicle they were frequently denied contact visits with family, prompt medical attention, dietary accommodations and affordable phone access without cutoffs. If true, the allegations would all be violations of ICE's own detention standards.

ICE officials at Hutto have not yet accommodated a request by the Chronicle to tour the facility, but they have promised an in-depth interview soon.

An ICE fact sheet says the facility "operates in accordance with applicable ICE detention standards," meals are approved by certified dieticians and classes are taught by state-certified teachers.

ICE officials in Washington defend the agency's use of the Hutto facility, saying it's the best way to protect and keep track of immigrant families and deter smugglers from using children to cross the border.

Mead said he hadn't heard reports of children vomiting, but that, of the nearly 2,000 people who have passed through Hutto, there have been only 27 grievances. All involved food except six, which involved medical issues, clothing and laundry, and were resolved.

Mead said ICE has added paint, carpet, toys and a playground. He also said the so-called uniforms are same-colored sweatpants and sweatshirts. "I absolutely reject the idea that they're in prison garb because they're not," he said.

Believed in the system

Mustafa and his mother, Bahjo, were released from Hutto last week.

They arrived last June after fleeing death threats in their homeland. Bahjo said her brother had been murdered and the killers were afraid she'd turn them in. Fearing for her life, she left her husband and 7-year-old son in Mogadishu and boarded a flight to Mexico.

She crossed the border in Mission and wandered lost for a few hours before she found a woman who gave her and Mustafa, then 2, some water. Bahjo asked the woman to call immigration authorities. The woman at first refused and told her to run, but Bahjo insisted she wanted to turn herself in to formally request asylum.

She believed in the American system.

"I used to think this was the best country in the world, that it would take care of kids, respect kids," she said. "I never thought I would be seven months inside Hutto."

She was arrested and separated from her son for about two weeks while authorities kept her in bedless holding stations and asked her repeatedly if she was a terrorist.

At Hutto, she lost herself in books. One day, her son caught her crying after a guard barged in on her in the restroom.

Bahjo got pro bono legal aid from Political Asylum Project of Austin and her bail was set in August, hers at $2,000, her toddler's at $1,500. But she couldn't pay it, so they stayed in Hutto for five more months.

When the judge granted her asylum last week, she said only three words: "Thank you, judge."

Now at a home in Austin for refugee women and children, Mustafa plays with toys. His mother is thinking about her future, getting a job, getting the rest of her family here. And she's reflecting about Hutto: She doesn't blame the guards; they were doing their job, she says.

But she's glad to see another side of the U.S.

"Outside, I think the people are still the way I used to think about them. They are good people," she said.